Menu

Rocking my wonky world…

A couple of weeks ago I spent a very fun day at the monthly PMQG Charity Sew meet up. The event is held at the fabulous Modern Domestic (my new home away from home) and I got to spend many happy hours sewing on a beautiful Bernina 560. In a day of wonderfulness the most amazing thing was having my wonky star world rocked by one of my fellow PMQG sewers, Cherri.

Wonky Stars have been a fun staple in my sewing repertory for a while. It is s a quick and easy way to make fun kids quilts and if you peruse my “Finished Quilt” tab you will see a few of them in there. So for years I have been cutting out my 5 inch squares, using my scraps to make star points and calling it good… but no longer. Here is how the new wonky stars block goes…

1. Take eight 5 inch x 5 inch squares of your background fabric… in this case various whites and creams.

2. Grab a pile of scraps in your colour scheme…for this exercise red.

3. Sew random fun bits of scraps together to make a squarish shape, making sure that it is a bit bigger than 5 inches square. Anything goes at this point. You can fussy cut…wonky log cabin or just improv. Then trim your random scrappy square down to 5 x 5 inches.

4. Make four points to you star using the 5 x 5 inch background squares as your foundation and larger scraps for the star points. Trim as needed to get a 5 x 5 inch square.

6. For an added extra bit of wonky fun at the Sew Day we then trimmed our blocks down to 12 1/2 inches square. This step allowed us to put the stars a little off center and added another element of randomness to the layout. The blocks work just as well trimmed down to 14 x 14 inches too.

And voila you have a fabulous wonky star with a scrappy center piece.

I can not believe I did not think of this technique myself. It is genius and the best way to use those little bits of fabric in your scrap bin. It was such a fun exercise this week to take all the wonky stars everyone made at the Sew Day and put them together into one loud, fun, wonky top.

There is a combination of solid centered stars and scrappy centered stars in this top and I think it works nicely.

And every star is so very very different. There was a lot of fun techniques used for the scrappy centers…

Because it is a kids quilt we went with bright colours, novelty prints and lots of fussy cutting. My favorite block is scrappy and fussy cut…

The finished top is 60 x 60 inches square and the next step is to find a fabulous PMQG member to quilt this beauty, or maybe we can throw it on the long arm at our next Charity Sew Day.

That is so great, and a perfect example of what I’m really bad at: improvising and making it up as you go along. I always have to have everything perfectly decided and organised. I’m going to have to relax and give it a try!

This is gorgeous!! The scrappy centre is such a great twist, although I think I like them best because they’re mixed in with solid centres. Thanks for showing how (have pinned so I can find it again when I want to push myself to try it). The finished quilt it so beautiful, you should all be very proud.
E xx

That is a great idea! I have a respectable pile of Kona white and snow scraps that I have been reluctant to use together. But seeing your quilt top and the different shades of background fabric, I think I might give it a try!

I found this recently. Such a beauty. I am making one now with different colors and the different whites and beiges. What color should the back be?? Making for someone and maybe one for me too. Thank you for sharing!.

This is so beyond gorgeous! I’ve been wondering forever what to make with some black chambray and colorful lawn fabric, and this is THE project. The wonky stars totally call me. :)) Thank you so much for sharing!!!!

Older Posts

Instagram Feed

My faves:

You might also like:

(c) Cath Hall and Wombat Quilts 2012-2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site's author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used provided that clear credit is given to Wombat Quilts with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.